Using Your Bible's Parallel Text Annotations: Reminders

In the previous article we showed how the ancients understood a biblical passage using as their aid texts that were similar to the passage being considered. For Augustine, it was a rule that he recommended especially in cases where a passage is difficult to understand. Guy the Carthusian explains that a particular text resonates through the whole of Scriptures and that it is the task of meditation to capture those resonances. In practice this would mean a mental search for passages that clarify a passage being read.

Augustine and Guy the Carthusian are not the originators of the method. They are only following a tradition that is already discernible in the way the writers of the New Testament made use of the Old Testament in presenting their meditations on the mystery of Christ. If we pick up any book of the New Testament, we'd find -- almost with regularity - passages from the Old Testament or, in some cases, even from other parts of the New Testament - being quoted, alluded to, and even interpreted. This "interdependence of content" between passages of Scriptures justifies the old axiom: "Interpret the Scriptures with the Scriptures." And this is somehow reflected in the way certain modern translations present the text of Scriptures, that is, accompanied by a set of notes indicating parallel texts.

We have shown how this feature is incorporated in the Jerusalem Bible and the New American Bible. (See article dated June 1, 2000) How then do we use this feature? Before giving an answer to this question, a few reminders:

1. As previously stated, parallel text annotations are minimal helps given to the students of the Bible. They are there to aid the reader understand a passage of Scriptures using other texts that a consensus of experts have ascertained as similar to it. Because what is given is minimal, we cannot expect our modern translations to indicate all the resonances of a given text. That would be impossible to do, and even if it were possible to give all resonances to a particular text, it would be like wrapping the reader in a straitjacket. Such a thing would be enslaving rather than liberating. Instead, we are provided with references to direct and implied quotations (OT citations, Synoptic parallels, textually dependent passages, etc.) in a measure that would not be cumbersome for the reader.

2. As in the case of Explanatory Notes, Parallel Text Annotations should be consulted only when necessity calls for it. If a thirty minute reading of a Scripture passage proves fruitful (that is, it leads the reader to pray) even without the use of parallel texts, then let it be so. In such a reading, Scriptural passages will be etched in the heart of the practitioner, forming part of his/her "biblical baggage" for future reference. A really devout reading generates its store of resonances as Guy the Carthusian describes it. Parallel text annotations should be consulted when the reader senses some kind of resistance from the text he or she is reading, -- a resistance similar to the way a beloved refuses one's amorous advances, not to discourage it, but to encourage it all the more. It is then that one's reading becomes an active searching, an entering into dialogue, a sweet struggle with the Word that resonates through the human words of Scriptures.

The copyright of the article Using Your Bible's Parallel Text Annotations: Reminders in Scriptural Studies is owned by alberto esmeralda. Permission to republish Using Your Bible's Parallel Text Annotations: Reminders in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic